There is little in what you quoted I don't already stand for. Except for the diss on consumerism (What is the problem people have with buying things?) but the rest is accurate:

Because of the Boomers, the American character has been eroded, and we need to get back to it.

Again - something I tend to represent.

That black men are spokesmen - while white guys are mostly still lost in the weeds - is interesting, I think. To be applauded, for sure, but there certainly aren't enough of us black guys and the white guys need to, both, snap out of it and give us some help.

We have to fight the dangerous streams in culture, the consumerism and narcissism and me-ism that erode the borders of our moral culture.

A call to collectivism with the 'narcissist and me-ism' charge of too much personal liberty. Nevermind how much collectivism and redistributionism have eroded the moral borders of personal responsibility and making your own way in life to one of entitlement and bringing about the gimme, gimme, gimme attitude she now decries.

Spending your money how you like is 'consumerism', one of the Deadly Sins of leftists. An implied. No reason given as to why its bad. Usually coming from someone who has the latest i-Phone and i-Pad.

We can’t put shallow celebrity before core decency.

Complaints about the celebrity culture coming from those that celebrate it the most: big city liberals.

We have to have a deeper faith in the human spirit.

They talk about how we need to have a deeper faith, but don't you dare bring up religion or how our moral values largely stem from adherence to religion and religious ideas.

As they say, he who has the heart to help has the right to complain.

Because they care so much more than the rest of us, they get to tell us what to do. They will use the State as the vehicle, rather than moral pursuasion.

“Most Americans continue to think of their lives in moral terms; they want to live good lives,” said James Davison Hunter, a professor of religion, culture and social theory at the University of Virginia and the author of “The Death of Character.” “But they are more uncertain about what the nature of the good is. We know more, and as a consequence, we no longer trust the authority of traditional institutions who used to be carriers of moral ideals.

We used to experience morality as imperatives. The consequences of not doing the right thing were not only social, but deeply emotional and psychological. We couldn’t bear to live with ourselves. Now we experience morality more as a choice that we can always change as circumstances call for it. We tend to personalize our ideals. And what you end up with is a nation of ethical free agents."

Ironic, isn't it, that Dowd fails to recognize her ideology, contemporary liberalism, bears almost exclusive blame for this condition?

I'd love to see how the Althouse reg'lars would shit all over the Sermon on the Mount were it delivered today by a contemporary analog to Jesus.

Heck, Jesus himself had his own version of scorning "consumerism" in his casting out of the merchants and moneychangers from the temple, and in his admonishments to his followers to rid themselves of their possessions if they would follow him. And don't forget his warning that rich men wouldn't get into heaven, (the whole "camel/eye of the needle" thing, not a mysterious zen koan but a blunt statement, which today would be expressed as "a rich man will enter heaven when monkeys fly out of my ass").

I'd be most curious to see the sophomoric insult names that would be devised here for him, by those as wrong about as they were certain of their scathing wit and superiority to the object of their condescension.

People like Dowd are willing to criticize institutions like the Catholic Church and the Penn State football program when they tolerate sex offenders. When it comes to Roman Polanski, not so much. It is wrong to sacrifice children to preserve the moral standing of the Church or a football program, but it's a different order of business when it comes to making a critically acclaimed movie....Can someone name a single Hollywood actor who would refusee to work with Polanski on moral grounds? Can you name a single actor who has been criticized for hypocrisy for working with Polanski?.....I give Dowd credit in that she was at least willing to take a few swings at Clinton. Maybe she even somewhere expressed muted criticism of the various Kennedy scandals. But, all in all, Dowd's analysis exemplifies rather than criticizes the dynamics of how the Church and the Penn State program became so corrupt. Dowd and her crowd give the rapists in their midst minimal criticism while hurling balls of fire at such safe targets as Church prelates and football coaches.....When Dowd writes a column detailing why Kate Winslet is an enabler of child rapists, I will accept her criticism of the assistant Penn State coach. How about a column blasting Ben Bradlee for his knowing cover up of JFK's many predations. Maureen Dowd is not so brave.

Ta-Nehisi Coates over at The Atlantic claims that black men don't get credit for doing the right thing. The main problem is that I'm not so sure Coates would agree with much that Booker claims is "the right thing".

It's startling because it's coming from a supposed Obama surrogate although of late dead to said POTUS. I suppose you could make the case that it's startling because it's a black man saying it and ask why more white men don't, but I would suggest that some white men say it all the time. So much so that it's lost in the background static of our caustic of-late culture. Sort of like someone saying Black History Month is important and there's no White History Month because it's "all" white history.

In this instance, I don't quite get this, given that the context leading up to the final quote in the article (which is Booker's) is the Sandusky case, and the failure if people surrounding him to put a stop to his terrible actions. It appears that people were indeed behaving in a shallow fasion, intimidated by the celebrity if the Penn State football program and its coaching staff. In reading the most if the comments in this thread, I'm sort of wondering if folks read the linked piece. : )

rcommal, if there's one thing you can count on, it's that a lot of people won't read the linked piece before commenting. And if they do read the piece, many will still go off with their knee-jerk comments either because of a lack of reading comprehension capabilities or the sad need to blame libruls for everything wrong in the world, starting with whatever is wrong in their lives. And it's usually the same set of commenters who roll that way. As night follows day...

That black men are spokesmen - while white guys are mostly still lost in the weeds - is interesting, I think. To be applauded, for sure, but there certainly aren't enough of us black guys and the white guys need to, both, snap out of it and give us some help.

I blogged this morning about the current situation for males in our country. My final thought was: "I wonder a far down men have to be pushed, how down trodden and abused by society, how much they have to blamed for every ill in society before they cry out, “Enough!!” and fight back."

No "... consumerism and narcissism and me-ism " corroded "our culture" as moral relativism propagared by the "liberals". When one accepts that "one man's terrorist is anther man's freedom fighter" blaiming comsumerism is redundant

"I don't get how saving someone from a burning building is anti-capitalist. But then I never read volume two of Capital."

YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!!

The person in the burning building is in there by choice, and the building is burning due to actions or choices the trapped person has made. It's not up to others--or government--to intervene and save the lazy parasite from suffocating or burning to death. That's properly the function of the private sphere, as those risking their lives to save victims from burning building should have the right to profit from their risk!

How typically obtuse of a leftist liberal commie fellow traveler useful idiot to not grasp this elementary truth.